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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES

Briefing date 12.09.2017
Powerful turbines have slashed the price of offshore wind farms

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News.

Powerful turbines have slashed the price of offshore wind farms
Financial Times Read Article

There is continuing coverage today of the announcement by the UK government yesterday that, reports the FT, the cost of subsidies from the government to the offshore wind industry fell as low as £57.50 per megawatt hour, more than 50 per cent lower than the average £117.14/MWh awarded in the last comparable bidding round just two years ago. The Times reports the news on its frontpage under the headline: “Record-breaking wind farm will cut cost of green energy.” The report continues: “The world’s biggest offshore wind farm will be built in British waters at a fraction of the price of the Hinkley Point nuclear plant in a breakthrough for the renewable energy technology. Ministers were urged to put more offshore wind farms at the heart of Britain’s industrial strategy after new subsidy contracts yesterday showed their cost has fallen 50 per cent in two years. Developers of the record-breaking Hornsea Two wind farm off the Yorkshire coast and a second large project off Scotland were awarded contracts guaranteeing them a subsidised price of £57.50 for each megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity they generate for 15 years.” In contrast, the Daily Mail, which has long opposed wind power, runs the story under the headline: “More monster wind farms are set to loom over Britain’s coast but power will cost 40% less than Hinkley.” Carbon Brief has all the details.

White House officials refuse to say if they believe climate change is responsible for giant hurricanes Irma and Harvey
Mail Online Read Article

As former Hurricane Irma continues to weaken as it moves inland over the US, the clear-up begins. However, the debate about to what extent climate change further fuelled the storm continues. Everywhere except the White House, it seems. The MailOnline is among a number of publications reporting that the Trump administration officials are refusing to be drawn on such links. “Causality is something outside my ability to analyze right now,” said homeland security advisor Tom Bossert. However, the New York Times carries an analysis piece looking at the reasons why Irma caused less flooding and surges than predicted: “That bit of good fortune was the product of some meteorological luck. Because a hurricane’s winds blow counterclockwise, the precise path of the storm matters greatly for determining storm surge. Had Irma lingered far enough off Florida’s Gulf Coast, its eastern wall, where the strongest winds occur, could have shoved six to nine feet of water into parts of Fort Myers and Naples, while swamping Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg as well.” InsideClimateNews says that the cost of Irma, and Harvey that preceded it, “may cost taxpayers more than they spent on relief and recovery in any previous year”. It quotes Adam Rose, a research professor with the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and an expert in the economics of natural disasters, who says: “The magnitude of the damage is getting bigger.” Meanwhile, BBC2’s Newsnight led on Irma last night and included an interview with the veteran climate sceptic and former Trump transition team member Myron Ebell. (The interviews starts about 11:40 minutes in.)

Climate change deniers 'stupid': Pope Francis

Speaking to reporters after a trip to Colombia, Pope Francis has said that “history will judge” a lack of action on climate change and urged doubters to talk to scientists who study the issue: “Those who deny it (climate change) should go to the scientists and ask them. They are very clear, very precise…A phrase from the Old Testament comes to mind: ‘man is stupid, a stubborn, blind man’.” Separately, the veteran Republican senator John McCain has said he is baffled by his party’s climate denial, reports ThinkProgress. “I can’t divine their motives,” he told CNN. He added: “It’s time for us to sit down again” on this issue. The Chicago Tribune even reports that the new Miss America has slammed Trump over his stance on climate change and his pledge to withdraw the US for the Paris Agreement: “It’s a bad decision,” said Cara Mund. “There is evidence that climate change is existing and we need to be at that table.”

Big investors to put more money into tackling climate change
Financial Times Read Article

More than two-thirds of institutional investors are planning to increase investments related to tackling climate change, according to a new survey that suggests “green finance” is moving from the margins to the mainstream of global markets. But more than half of the 497 institutional investors surveyed said they are receiving “highly inadequate” information from companies about their risk of disruption from climate change — as well their ability to benefit from the shift to low-carbon technologies. The FT says the findings, in a study commissioned by HSBC, will “add weight to calls from Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, and others for greater disclosure of ‘climate risks’ in the corporate and financial sectors”. Meanwhile, Reuters reports bankers warning that “as climate threats grow clearer, risk-lowering investment is crucial”.

UK outperforms G20 nations on decarbonisation
Energy Live News Read Article

New analysis reveals the carbon intensity of the UK economy fell last year by 7.7% – almost three times the global average of 2.6%. That was due to a decline in coal usage, improved energy efficiency and “moderate” economic growth. Coal now represents just 7% of the UK’s energy usage, down from 23% in 2012 while renewable energy has more than tripled since 2000, with “substantial” investment in wind and biomass. The Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI) from PwC, now in its ninth year, tracks G20 nations’ progress in cutting the carbon intensity of their economy, i.e. energy-related greenhouse gas emissions per million dollars of GDP. China, the world’s largest emitter, reduced its carbon intensity by 6.5% and has been ranked second, followed by the G7 nations, at 2.9%. BusinessGreen also carries the story.

North Sea warming twice as fast as world′s oceans
Deutsche Welle Read Article

Climate change has caused the North Sea’s temperature to increase twice as fast as that of the world’s oceans, according to Germany’s environment ministry. The average temperature of the North Sea rose by 1.67C over the past 45 years, during which time the temperature of oceans such as the Pacific or Atlantic increased by 0.74C on average. The German government warns that the North Sea’s temperature could rise by another 1.7-3.2C by 2100. The temperature increase could lead to the displacement of “indigenous species that fail to adapt”, it warns

Commment.

Hinkley nuclear power is being priced out by renewables
Nils Pratley, The Guardian Read Article

Most papers carry comment about the falling cost of wind power and use it to highlight the cost of nuclear power. Nils Pratley in the Guardian says: “The UK should concentrate on wind- and gas-fired stations, and involve nuclear only if it can vaguely compete on price.” Meanwhile, the Guardian’s energy editor, Adam Vaughan, writes: “The persistent myth that green energy is expensive has been shredded by the revelation that windfarms will be built around Britain’s coast far more cheaply than new nuclear reactors…With a major government review of the cost of energy due out in October, there are calls for Theresa May to at the very least commit to further support for offshore wind and, more radically, to drop plans for new nuclear. It’s become clear which way the wind is blowing.” Jillian Ambrose in the Telegraph writes: “The Great British offshore wind boom is still notable for the absence of any large, UK-based players. The big winners in the Government’s latest auction were Denmark’s Dong Energy and Statkraft, Portugal’s EDP Renewables and French energy company Engie.” In the Times, Alistair Osborne argues that “it’s a dizzying drop, though that might tell you something else, too: that the first contract round in 2014 was ridiculously generous…Meantime, the costs for big nukes keep rising, as the likes or EDF and Toshiba continue to prove. Yet the government’s not only locking us into a 35-year fleecing from Hinkley but planning more of the same. As policies go, it’s as headless as a poor kamikaze kittiwake.” In the Independent, James Moore says: “Clean energy? A fantasy, is how the sceptics (mostly on the right) used to have it. Science fiction that won’t be realised for decades. Now if you really want to cut those carbon emissions, let’s build a load of new nuclear power plants, and add it into the mix with gas. The fallacy of that argument is being brutally exposed. Not only is the technology that allows the extraction of clean energy from renewable sources improving at a rapid pace, the economic case is advancing at the same pace as the environmental one. The latest example comes courtesy of offshore wind.”

Comment.

Winds of Change
Editorial, The Times Read Article

A number of newspapers run editorials today reacting to the offshore wind power auction prices. The Times says: “In the future, nonrenewable power sources will need to be turned up and down to complement renewable ones. This is possible with small gas-powered plants, but not with nuclear giants. Yesterday’s auction should be taken in government as a signal to redouble investment in research and investment in renewable energy, energy storage and the smart grid. It is also a clear signal that nuclear energy on the scale of Hinkley Point is fast being left behind.” The Telegraph agrees, but stress small nuclear reactor (SMRs) are worth pursuing: “The technology has long existed to produce mini-reactors – for submarines and ships – but not at commercially viable levels. SMRs would be much cheaper than a conventional power station and could provide Britain with a valuable export industry. They are certainly worth exploring. Ministers cannot just ignore the implications of the sharp decline in wind-generated energy costs for the future of Hinkley.” The Financial Times‘s editorial says “the latest auction of government subsidies to provide electricity from ‘less established technologies’ is a striking illustration of just how fast things have changed…If the [nuclear] industry is to have a future in a world of increasingly competitive renewables, it will clearly need to become more reliable when it comes to the construction of new plants. It will also need to be more flexible: given the pace of change, vast behemoths such as Hinkley Point may make less sense than the smaller, modular reactors now at an early stage of development.” The Daily Mail, meanwhile, says that “green campaigners” who have “seized with glee” the news about the tumbling cost of wind power “do not mention that gas-fired stations are becoming cleaner and greener…with abundant supplies of cheap fuel since fracking in America sent world gas prices tumbling”.

Harvey and Irma aren’t natural disasters. They’re climate change disasters
Eric Holthaus, Grist Read Article

Holthaus writes in Grist: “A warmer, more violent atmosphere — heated up by our collective desire to ignore the fact that we live on a planet where such devastation is possible — juiced Harvey and Irma’s destruction…This is not a ‘new normal’. There is no more normal.” He adds that this is the “first time in history that the Atlantic has seen back-to-back-to-back hurricanes of Category 4 or higher Destructive storms like Harvey and Irma will only become more common. Accepting that fact — and talking about the radical change necessary to reverse this trend — is the most important thing we can do right now.”

Science.

Climatic vulnerability of the world's freshwater and marine fishes
Nature Climate Change Read Article

Marine ray-finned fish could be more vulnerable to climate change than their freshwater counterparts, new research suggests. A study of more than 3,000 ray-finned fish found that marine species have an overall lower tolerance to heat than those that live in freshwater lakes and rivers and so are more likely to be badly affected by warming. “Spatial overlap between areas of high physiological risk and high human impacts, together with evidence of low past rates of evolution in upper thermal tolerance, highlights the urgency of global conservation actions and policy initiatives if harmful climate effects on the world’s fishes are to be mitigated in the future,” the researchers conclude.

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